


post blue

by heavyliesthecrown



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: (kinda), 3x01, Adderall Use, Addiction, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Canon Compliant, Drug Use, F/M, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Kind of a fix it fic, Prescription Medication, more of an explanatory fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-14
Updated: 2018-10-14
Packaged: 2019-08-02 03:01:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,724
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16297007
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heavyliesthecrown/pseuds/heavyliesthecrown
Summary: "And even with water, she still feels the little beads rattling against the pill’s blue shell as she swallows."A 3x01 expansion.





	post blue

**Author's Note:**

> Trigger warning – discussion and themes relating to prescription medication use, addiction.
> 
> The biggest thank you to bugggghead for the amazing beta job. She continues to astound me with her insight and edits.
> 
> Tumblr - @heavy-lies-the-crown

_I’m on time on Adderall._

She’s always liked colors.

Colors are vibrant – they’re bold and fresh. Where there’s color, she often finds, there’s life, too. Lilacs and pinks when the hydrangeas in the front yard bloom in springtime, soft yellows dotting the hedges on the way to school. So much green in the trees when summer inevitably rolls around again, and blue – wide open skies, cloudless and perfect, all the blue she could ever want.

She’d learned her colors early on. Archie learned animal sounds first, and Jughead the alphabet, but she learned her colors first.

And it’s stayed with her; in a way, these formative moments have stayed with all of them. They’ve shaped and defined who they are. Archie likes music, Jughead writes.

And her – she likes the world best in the summertime; it’s when the world feels like it’s alive again.

It makes her feel alive, too.

 

* * *

 

It starts off with the very best of intentions.

She’d believed him when he’d said that there wasn’t a snowball’s chance in hell that evil could be passed down. He knows her better than that, and what he knows is that she’s good. She’s a good person, and that person has a good heart.

 _So sweet,_ she’d thought then. _He was always so sweet to her._

But even so, a girl with a serial killer for a father probably has a lot to sort out upstairs, so to the fainting couch she goes, and willingly, too.

Willingly, that is, until she sees the couch.

The couch is green. Forest green. Plush and velvet, and very comfortable-looking, but forest green just the same.

There are a few places she doesn’t mind that color: on the trees, on round little packets of moss. In the actual forest itself. She has no problem with green being in those places.

Outside, forest green is perfectly fine by her. It’s beautiful, even.

But inside, it just looks dirty.

And she _hates_ dirty.

She supposes that letting something as inconsequential as the color of a couch of all things dictate something as monumental as her mental health had been childish. But then again, she isn’t a child. She was once, but she isn’t anymore because children by and large don’t have to deal with the realities she does.

_My father is a murderer._

_My best friend is on trial for a murder he didn’t commit._

_My boyfriend was almost murdered._

_I helped cover up a murder._

_So much murder_ , she thinks. _So very much murder for sixteen._

For any age, truly.

But even so – even with all that murder, she isn’t able to focus on it while sitting on that forest green couch.

At the end of the session that leads to absolutely nowhere because she can’t focus on anything but the color of the couch she’s sitting on the edge of, she jumps up at the good doctor’s sentence – the one that goes something like _‘that’s our time for today, Betty.’_ And in her very great haste, she swings her purse right into the water pitcher on the desk.

Betty doesn’t expect it to be glass. And she doesn’t expect it to shatter so loudly, either.

“I’m sorry,” she says, in a panic of waving arms. “I’m so sorry.”

For all her calmness, inaction, and general inactivity the past hour – what do _you_ think Betty, what do _you_ feel, Betty; this is all about _you_ – Dr. Glassman springs to life over the broken glass immediately.

 _What’s in a name_ , she thinks at that moment. But she doesn’t share it.

Betty figures that’s not the kind of thing therapy is for – her snippy attitude.

“I’m so sorry,” she repeats, uselessly tapping a large piece of glass away from her with the edge of her sandal. “I’m so clumsy.”

“Betty, it’s not a big deal. This kind of thing happens all the time.”

For the rest of summer, she marvels at the quickness of her mind in that one moment.

 

* * *

 

For all the slowness that had characterized the past hour on the dirty couch, she thinks quickly in the moment that follows. She thinks so quickly.

It catches her eye simply because it’s pink. She loves the color pink and damn what anyone else has to say about it.

And it’s sitting right there in the middle of her one-time shrink’s desk – so full, so neatly, and so alluringly.

In one quick motion, she swipes it off the polished wood, offers a few more apologies for the broken glass that she really doesn’t mean at all, and flies right out the doctor’s door.

Outside, she wonders what she’s going to use a prescription pad for. She has Advil for her headaches and period cramps, gummy vitamins because honestly, they taste good and they get the job done, and her birth control for, well, reasons that are her own – she has everything she needs.

She thinks about throwing it away then and there because she’s Betty Cooper, and she’s good; she’s not a thief.

But it’s pink, and maybe it could come in handy at some point or other.

So she doesn’t.

 

* * *

 

He picks her up after with tired eyes and a bright face. He’s always so sweet to her.

“How’d it go?” he asks, left foot bouncing against the pavement as he hands her a white helmet.

That’s a color she’s okay with. White – she likes white.

It’s clean.

Because he’s sweet, he’d asked her if she’d wanted pink when they’d gone out looking for the helmet. She’d thought he’d been throwing yet another joke about her and her pastel sweaters her way, but he’d looked at her so earnestly when he’d asked her that, big blue eyes wide with excitement.

She’s always liked the color blue.

“Any color you want, Betts,” he’d told her. “And for the record, if you, uh, want your jacket to be pink, that’s fine, too.”

“My jacket?” she’d asked, looking down at her arms.

Blue. Denim blue.

“No,” he’d said gently. “Not that jacket.” He’d looked then, at his own, eyes darting from one arm to the other.

“Jug that’s sweet of you,” she’d told him, hand on his arm and brushing against the worn leather. “But black is fine.”

“Betty, it’s really not a big deal to me. If you want pink, then we can get you pink. Seriously.”

“Really,” she’d said dubiously, a statement more than a question.

He’d shrugged. “Yeah. I mean, Cheryl’s is red. Why not add every other color under the freaking rainbow while we’re at it?”

“Pink isn’t in the rainbow.”

That’d earned her an eye roll. “Might as well be.”

But even though she doesn’t like the color black – it’s all too funeral-like for her taste – she’d insisted on it. Not pink which she loves, and not blue which she likes. Black because somewhere in her mind she’d thought of and clung onto the idea that if they were going to do this – be the king and queen of a group of ragtag teenagers – then they should stand united.

They should _look_ united.

So black it was.

“I don’t think I’m going to go back,” she tells him once they’re on the road. “Dr. Glassman wasn’t helpful. I don’t feel any different.”

With her hands wrapped around his waist, and her right hand over his heart, she feels the way he inhales slowly, then exhales at the same pace. He’s being careful around her, with his actions and with his words.

“Don’t you think it might more than one session to really know?”

Admittedly, it’s a little unfair of her. She’d picked this moment, the one where she couldn’t see those blue eyes of his looking at her to have this conversation, and that isn’t fair.

They always bring out the truth in her.

He hasn’t been pushing her recently because he knows it’s not the time to right now. He doesn’t push her on what she wants to do with what little time she has free, and he doesn’t push her on anything Serpent related. He doesn’t push her on sex at all – not that he ever has – but he doesn’t so much as mention it now.

Too much murder, after all. Too much murder.

“I don’t think it’s really all that helpful, Jug,” she says.  “I’d rather focus on Archie’s case.”

“Okay,” he agrees. “If you think that’s best.”

They leave it at that.

 

* * *

 

It continues with the best of intentions, too.

Working on Archie’s case is more difficult than she thinks it’s going to be.

Betty knows he’s innocent. She knows exactly what had happened that night. But it’s an entirely different thing altogether making sure that there’s no way that anyone else can prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Archie did this terrible thing.

It’s all much harder than she thinks it will be – working on this innocent person’s case, a person who she knows so deeply within her heart doesn’t deserve to be behind bars, knowing that there’s another entirely guilty person so closely related to her that does.

 _Murder, murder_ – there’s far too much murder in her world.

Somewhere near the end of May, on a particularly gloomy and rainy morning, she finds herself digging for the orange bottle stashed at the back of her dresser drawer.

It’s still there, although she’s completely unsurprised by that. Betty knows her mother goes through her things in the transparent act also known as _‘putting away her laundry’_ but her Adderall is still there.

And why wouldn’t it be? Anything to help with her drive, with her focus – that’s not a place where her mother is ever going to draw a line.

She pushes down on the child lock cap and twists the bottle open, wondering fleetingly and so morbidly what would happen to a child who did get their hands on these?

 

* * *

 

She rolls one around her palm.

The pills are blue and white. And white only because the little beads are showing through the clear half of the pill.

Blue and white – it’s a fine combination. She likes both those colors.

 _Adderall XR,_ she reads. _20 mg._ The first thing she thinks is _good_.

Extended release for extended energy – that’s a good thing. That’s something she needs.

It’s nearly a year old, and somewhere in the back of her mind, Betty thinks that it might be a good idea to check and make sure that her keeling over in death isn’t an unfortunate side effect of taking old medication.

But she’s so tired. All of her is tired.

So she places the blue pill on her tongue carefully, rolling it around her mouth just like she’d done on the surface of her palm.

And even with water, she still feels the little beads rattling against the pill’s blue shell as she swallows.

 

* * *

 

It takes her an hour to come up.

At first, she doesn’t think it’s working. Extended release is one thing, but no release at all is another.

But on the hour mark, on the dot, with her hand wrapped around the nape of her neck, she feels her pulse thrum harder under her fingertips.

And just like that, she isn’t tired anymore.

She’s a little sweaty now. There’s a clamminess building under her palms and under her arms. Her mouth feels like she’s swallowed one too many times, and she knows she’s clenching her jaw just a little too tightly.

All of that is admittedly, a little unpleasant. But there’s so much more that is pleasant.

More than pleasant even.

For the first time in weeks, she doesn’t feel tired. She doesn’t find her mind wandering over to her father, wondering why he’d so willingly committed a crime they’re all trying so desperately to untangle Archie from now. Now, she’s thinking about Archie and she’s thinking about the facts. She’s thinking about the evidence and the lack thereof.

She’s even thinking about the law and how she wouldn’t mind doing this as more than just an intern one day.

It just clicks - the statute she’s reading and the laundry list of exceptions in front of her, what she needs to do. Her life, it all clicks and slides into place.

At the hour mark, time begins to move slower. She gets more mileage out of a minute now. She doesn’t have to double back and read words she’s already read once, and she isn’t distracted by the little things around her she’d been distracted by before.

The ticking of the clock. The low whirr of the fan – it’s all just white noise.

Betty starts when she hears a voice calling to her, and it takes her a heartbeat to even realize that she’s being talked to; a heartbeat so much quicker than the ones she’s used to.

“Betty,” Mary Andrews greets tiredly, arms stacked high with manila folders. “How’re you today?”

She looks up then and it’s all so bright that she has to blink a few times, rapidly and furiously to adjust.

Rarely has she ever seen the world look this bright.

There are a handful of times she can point to – the moments where she comes back to solid ground after he kisses her, after he’s run his hands through every hidden space and surface on her body, the moments when those blue eyes of his look at her the way they do – those times are a little like this.

The world is more colorful at those moments. Everything is brighter. Everything pops more, everything is simply vibrant, like a filter dialed up to its maximum brightness.

Now, the world is like that, too. It’s full of color.

And she feels like she just might be able to do absolutely anything.

“I’m good,” Betty says brightly, ignoring the growing stiffness in her jaw. She doesn’t think she’s ever seen Mary’s hair look so red. “I’m really good.”

 

* * *

 

They weren’t kidding about extended release.

It’s two in the morning and she’s worked harder today than she’s ever worked in her life. Her brain has processed and retained more than it ever has within the span of twenty-four hours, but it doesn’t feel like it’s going to quiet anytime soon.

 _It’s funny,_ she thinks, _how even the darkness itself has color._ There are shades of gray and black in her room – it isn’t uniform. There’s a spectrum – charcoal grey where seams of light from the outside dance across the wood floor, coal tucked away into the depths of the corners, under her bed.

Even now, in the embrace of the night, her world is still in color.

Betty turns on the lamp on her nightstand and sits on the edge of her bed, the soles of her feet brushing against the carpet. She can’t sleep and she knows that she won’t be able to for a while.

If at all.

There’s a container of disinfectant wipes she keeps under her desk only for emergencies – spilled tea and coffee, sticky snacks and the like.

She figures sparing one or two now wouldn’t hurt.

She starts cleaning for lack of anything better to do.

 

* * *

 

She sleeps for an hour near daybreak. It’s a fitful hour, one where she’s hovering just under the threshold of wakefulness the entire time, but it’s better than nothing.

She can still feel it when she wakes. It’s muted, but it’s there. Her heart is still beating steadily in overtime, although not as much as it had the day before. Her jaw clicks from clenching it so tightly, like she has some kind of personal vendetta against the world, but even through the soreness, her teeth push against each other with more firmness than she needs them to.

Standing over her open dresser drawer, she reads the label on the orange bottle, embarrassed that she hadn’t even thought to do that yesterday. She knows better than that.

But it’s also kind of straightforward, if she’s being honest. There are thirty pills and thirty days.

 _Take one a day as needed_ , she reads.

As needed.

What she needs is to be at her very best right now. She needs to be thinking at her very best and she needs to be acting at her very best.

She simply needs to be her best.

With her breath held, she pushes the cap down and twists the bottle open.

 _Blue and white_ , she thinks. _What a pretty combination._

And in an hour, the color returns to the world.

 

* * *

 

Now during the come up, she starts drinking coffee just to see how far she can really push this feeling.

These days, there’s an added line of sweat dotting her brow, and the underside of her legs feels slippery.

She’s started chewing gum, too, because at least that gives her mouth something to do other than grinding her teeth together.

And every day, after she starts to feel it work its magic on her heart, the caffeine swirling in with it now, too, she marvels at how colorful the world can really be, and just how far she’s able to go.

 

* * *

  
She starts drinking smoothies and green juices instead of eating lunch.

Normally, she loves lunch. She loves neatly made sandwiches with the crusts lined up. But these days, she isn’t hungry.

It’s easy enough to get away with it, too - no one has any time to pay attention to the intern who doesn’t eat. Mary Andrews, the worried mother she is, has her nose pressed against a computer screen for the better part of the day and doesn’t eat herself. Sierra McCoy, week three into Atkins, falls hook, line, and sinker for her _‘oh, it’s really too hot to eat an entire meal and smoothies are oh-so-cooling’_ shtick.

And when her own mother comments that it looks like she’s lost some weight recently, that’s the easiest one of them all to get away with.

“Isn’t that a good thing?” Betty asks innocently, a sweet and sickly smile on her face. “Isn’t that what you encouraged me to do? It’s swimsuit season.”

 

* * *

  

At first when he moves over her, their bodies gently rocking together, her breath comes in time with his.

 _Love you, love you. I love you,_ she thinks as his hand slide up her pink sheets and anchors hers down on the bed firmly.

When his heartbeat quickens, breaths falling over her in short, staccatoed bursts, she feels hers meet it.

Then, hers surpasses it.

It’s uncomfortable, almost painful, the way her heart cracks against the back of her breasts, and she’s so tempted to draw the arm she has slung around his shoulders down to her chest and just press her fitful pulse back into rhythm.

But she doesn’t - that’ll give much too much away.

So she focuses on the way he whispers her name instead, the thrum of his heartbeat, and does her best to match hers back in time with his.

“Hey,” he calls over to her as she wriggles her t-shirt back on after. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” she says, joining him on the edge of the bed. And in case he doesn’t believe her, she runs a finger down the side of his cheek. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

He shrugs. “Forget I said anything. I just-” he catches her chin in his hand and gently draws her gaze to his.

“What?” she asks.

“Nothing,” he says, but it doesn’t quite convince her. “Your eyes just look darker, that’s all.”

 

* * *

  

She’d written out the numbers one through thirty on the bottle’s white label. She’s been counting.

Betty starts to worry when she gets to the little number five scratched onto the last remaining row without neat X’s over the numbers.

She shakes out the contents of the orange bottle into her hand just to be sure she’s counting right.

But they’re there, all five blue and white pills.

And that’s all that’s there.

She places them one by one back into the bottle, frowning as she does and counting them back out to herself again, just to be sure.

Just to be sure.

_One, two, three, four, five._

That’s it.

It’s only June and the trial is slated for August. They’ve barely begun discovery for Archie’s case. There are motions to write. There are so many cases to read and even more to research. There are memories she needs to scrub through over and over again with the finest of tooth combs – maybe she’s missed something. Maybe there’s something hidden in the corners of her mind that just might help Archie get out of this unscathed.

There’s so much to do if Archie’s going to have a fighting chance.

She hasn’t forgotten about that pink pad tucked away safely into the pockets of one of the purses she doesn’t use much anymore.

If she’s being honest, it’s why she’s been as reckless and as carefree with her small supply as she’s been. There’s a way for her to get more. Not an easy way, and not even a way she’d wanted to resort to, but there’s a way.

She locks herself in her closet with a pen between her teeth.

 

* * *

 

Betty fills in her details with the pad anchored firmly on the wall. Name, birth date, address.

She doesn’t hesitate over those – she knows all that well enough.

What she does falter over is her prescription. She knows exactly what to write, but if she does, she’s admitting she needs it.

She’s doing something very, very wrong. She’s stealing medication. She’s forging.

She’s doing something illegal so she can operate within the confines of the legality.

But it’s for a good cause - it’s all for Archie.

So she writes it, carefully copying the letters from the bottle’s label to the pink pad.

But because she knows full well she’s doing something illegal and how very wrong this is, she protects herself.

 _Dr. Glass,_ she writes under prescribing physician, omitting the latter half of the good doctor’s name before shakily signing the pink slip with her left hand.

It’s just close enough to the truth that she’s able to push it to the back of her mind and block it out.

It’s just close enough to the truth that she can believe it if she really wants to.

Then, she calls him.

“Jug,” she says before he has a chance say anything first. “Can you do something for me?”

He says he will before she even tells him what she needs him to do. He’s sweet to her, always.

Sometimes, she thinks she doesn’t deserve it.

 

* * *

 

At first, he’s worried when she tells him that where he’s taking her is to the pharmacy.

“No, Jug,” she says flatly. “I’m not pregnant.”

That brings at least some color back to his face.

“But,” Betty continues, “it’s related to that, in that I don’t want to _get_ pregnant.”

It takes him a moment to connect the dots, but he gets there eventually. “Got it,” Jughead says, and when he smiles, a little bashfully and a little ruefully all at once, she can still see the faint outline of a scar tugging on his forehead. She tries not to think much about that night, but it’s hard not to when there’s such a stark reminder right there in front of her.

That’s one memory she’s had a very hard time pushing away from the surface of her mind. Him, bruised and broken, beaten to a bloody pulp and hovering near death’s door.

He’s confused at first when she asks him if they could go to the Greendale pharmacy instead, but after spouting out a round of incoherent logic through fast talking and hand gestures, the question falls from his face and he tells her to hop on.

He’ll take her to Greendale if that’s where she wants to go – he’ll take her anywhere. All she needs to do is say the word.

He hasn’t pushed her all summer, and he doesn’t really push her on this.

 

* * *

 

He insists on standing in line with her at the pharmacy, even though she’d much rather he just wait outside.

She doesn’t win that battle.

“The least I can do is wait with you, since you’re, you know, technically doing this for us,” he says, the apples of his cheeks slightly pink.

It’s such a pretty color on him, this kind of soft, faint pink. To her, he’s so beautiful.

She can’t really argue with his logic, so she agrees - he can come in and stand in line with her. But she _can_ feel incredibly shaken with guilt when he offers to pay for half of it.

“Jug, it’s fine,” she tells him quietly, waving away his wallet. “My insurance covers it.”

 _Most_ of it, but that’s semantics, really.

He tries his best to entertain her while they wait. “Pick a person,” he whispers to her, “and I’ll tell you why they’re here.”

She isn’t really in the mood, but he’s trying so hard. He’s always so good to her.

“That guy,” she says, tilting her head towards her right.

“The guy looking at Depends?”

“Mmm hmm,” she says, lips quirking.

“Well, that guy,” he starts, carefully picking his words, “he’s obviously shopping for adult diapers.”

“Obviously,” she whispers back to him.

“But see, they’re not for him.”

“Oh?”

“They’re for his dog.”

“What?”

“Yeah,” he says, mouth unsteady as he works at holding back his laughter. “He’s got this nervous dog at home. Can’t take him anywhere. Pees when he does, pees when he doesn’t. And he’s getting really tired of cleaning up after this damn dog. So he’s been thinking recently – if babies have diapers that deal with this very problem, how come my dog can’t have them, too?”

“What type of dog?”

“Yippy Chihuahua.”

“So why _adult_ diapers?” she asks. “Why not diapers for kids? Wouldn’t they fit better?”

“Betts, he’s confused,” he chides her playfully. “He’s never done this before and he doesn’t know where to look right now. Have some sympathy for the poor guy.”

 _Sweet,_ she thinks as she turns and hides her laughter into his shoulder – _what a sweet, sweet soul she calls the man she loves._

 

* * *

 

Betty times it carefully, knowing that there’s only one perfect moment for her to get this right.

And she does. As the woman in front of her reaches for her paper bag, she turns to him.

“Do me a favor?” she says, nudging his arm with her elbow as the woman starts to move from the counter. “Grab me a Diet Coke?”

He doesn’t question her because he hasn’t been pushing her all summer. She can tell that he’s confused and that he’s caught on at least halfway to why she’s picking this exact moment to send him off to the fridges on the other side of the store, but he simply nods and stalks off silently.

When she’s sure he’s out of sight, Betty places the pink page onto the countertop and smiles as brilliantly as she can. When she smiles like this, she’s learned a while ago, people rarely feel the need to look past it.

“Is there a Dr. Glass at Wellside?” the pharmacist asks her, and even before he’s finished his question, the tips of her ears already start burning and glowing red.

She loves her ponytail because it’s neat and practical, but it hides nothing; there’s no such thing as a poker face with her ponytail.

“Of course,” Betty says as confidently as she can. “She’s new there.”

Jughead returns with her Diet Coke and a smile, and the pharmacist with her blue and white pills tucked into a brown paper bag.

 

* * *

 

Somewhere between Greendale and Riverdale, he drives them off onto a road less taken.

If she’s really getting down to the nitty gritty, she supposes the right term for this is the road _barely_ taken because there’s sharp grass pricking at her calves, and no pathway at all in sight. Not even a dirt one.

“Jug, where are-”

“It’s not birth control,” he says, wrestling his helmet off his head before rising to stand next to the bike. “Whatever you got just now.”

She thinks about lying to him but there’s really no point, at least about this. He’s right, and he knows that as well as she does.

So she comes out with it plainly. “It’s not birth control,” Betty says, swinging her leg over so that they’re both on the same side of the bike. Straddling something during this particular conversation just doesn’t feel right. “It’s... a study booster. It helps me focus.”

Betty watches as his face runs through the gauntlet of shock and confusion and somewhere in the back of her mind, she wonders what his first question will be. She’s sure he’ll have a lot of them.

“Is it safe?” comes back with eventually.

“I guess so,” she says shrugging. “I have a prescription and I follow the instructions.”

“Why?”

“For Archie,” she says, and that’s all she needs to.

“And how are you getting these?”

“My doctor.”

And technically, it isn’t a lie. _It isn’t._ Dr. Glassman had been her doctor once and technically, she’s getting the pills from her.

Under a fake name. And a forged signature and a stolen prescription pad. But still, they’re coming from her.

“What is it?”

“What’s what?”

“You know – Adderall, Vyvanse? Extended release, instant? What are you taking?”

She holds her face steady but it takes effort to do that. She didn’t know that he knew all that much about it, but then again, he probably does know a thing or two about drugs given the crowd he rolls with.

“It’s just Adderall,” she says, knowing that her _‘just’_ will really get her nowhere at all. “Extended.”

“Ten?”

She pauses, looking down at the dirt, an ugly but earthly brown. “Twenty.”

_“Twenty? Milligrams?”_

She nods.

“Betty, that’s a lot.”

“Not really. That’s what they gave me and it’s normal. And I’ve been fine.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” he asks. Then quietly – “Why lie?”

That, she supposes, deserves a real apology. Back when he’d been hovering in the nether space between life and death, she’d promised whichever gods and good will that would listen to her she would never lie to him again, ever, if only they’d allow him to wake up.

“Jug, I’m sorry,” she says. “I should’ve told you.”

He sighs, and slowly, he sits back down beside her on the bike, stretching his legs out past hers.

“Betty, this is me,” he says to her, and she’s distracted for a moment when the sunlight catches the flecks of royal blue in his eyes. “Me who loves you. I thought – I don’t know – I thought we were supposed to tell each other stuff like this.”

“We are,” she says, voice hitting a note of desperation because he’s right about this. If he’d been the one popping pills like candy, she’d damn well want to know about it, too. “I’m sorry,” Betty repeats. “I just – Jug, I didn’t want you to worry about me.”

“Betty, I’ll always worry about you,” he tells her gently. “But I tend to worry a little more when you don’t tell me things like this.”

“I’m sorry,” she repeats, remorseful. “I really am.”

“Betty, I’m not saying any of this to make you feel bad. I don’t need you to apologize to me,” he says. “Do you feel like you can’t talk to me? I don’t want you to feel that way.”

“I _don’t_ feel that way,” she says, grabbing onto his arm for emphasis. “I don’t. I feel like I can talk to you. I was embarrassed that I needed these,” she admits, touching one hand to her purse. “And I didn’t want you to worry. You have so many other things to worry about.”

“Nothing more important than you.”

 _He’s sweet,_ she thinks again. _He’s always so unfailingly sweet to her._

She hopes she’s as sweet to him.

“No more secrets,” she tells him, bumping her shoulder against his. “No more lies. I promise.”

He smiles at her, eyes rising from the brown dirt to meet hers, so blue and so bright.

She’s always liked blue, and especially the one that’s so uniquely his.

 

* * *

 

At home, her mother and Polly are swinging crystals over her niece and nephew. Their chubby fists wave in the air as they reach for them, and their little fingers slap against their palms.

She thinks about being snarky and asking whatever happened to good, old fashion mobiles with sheep attached to them? They’re farm animals – isn’t that enough of a _farm_ theme for Polly if that’s the general theme she’s going for?

But they’re preoccupied when she walks through the door and they so often aren’t, so she slips up the stairs, two at a time, and kicks the door to her room shut.

She needs to hide them. There’s no way she can explain these to her mother, to Polly. Jughead might not be pushing her, but she knows they will.

Her usual places won’t work. They know where her diaries are, they know where her stash of emergency twenties is. There isn’t all that much in her room that’s sacred to her, and as she scans the space, eyes darting only to the corners and nooks and crannies, she thinks about how messed up that is.

The dresser drawer is, admittedly, an all too obvious place to hide them, but she has a better idea. She has a plan.

With a pair of scissors in hand, she goes for the pretty pink push-up bra she hasn’t worn in years. She’d gotten it years ago, back when everyone else had started developing and she hadn’t; back when she was still so far behind.

Betty turns the bra over in her hands and near the seam, starts cutting as neat and inconspicuous a line as possible. With the pads of her fingers, she digs out some of the stuffing before working what remains into a little circular shaped nest.

Then, she does the same on the other side and divides the pills between them equally – fifteen and fifteen.

The little mounds of blue and white look pretty against the pink, she finds herself thinking.

They’re all colors that she likes.

With one quick motion, she pops one into her mouth and flops back onto her bed, staring at the ceiling as she waits.

An hour when she’s not up and flying high, she muses, goes by very quickly.

 

* * *

 

Somewhere in the haze of the umpteenth time her mother and Polly badger her about Hal Cooper and how she should really be talking about it and _expressing herself_ if she knows what’s good for her, Betty throws up her arms and rounds on both of them.

“I _am_ talking to someone,” she says. “Just not you guys.”

“ _Who_ , Elizabeth?” her mother asks.

“A shrink,” Betty says. The words come so naturally to her. “A therapist. Her name is Dr. Glass.”

Her mother and Polly look pleased enough with that answer.

And so the lie continues.

 

* * *

 

She’ll admit to herself that there are days she doesn’t think she needs it.

But every morning, standing in front of her dresser, she thinks about how much more she can do when she’s riding the wave of the blue and white pills. She thinks about Archie and how difficult life on the inside would be for him. He’s sheltered like she is, and they’ve both grown up so well. He isn’t Jughead, and Archie doesn’t know what it means to live in anything but comfort. He doesn’t know how difficult life can really be.

Archie is strong, but he’s sensitive, too, and even she isn’t sure that he can survive this.

And when she thinks about Archie’s face bisected by chrome bars, when she thinks about her father’s, and all the murdered, dead people buried six feet under, there’s a distinct and shattering fear that comes with that.

It’s a fear she can’t control. It’s one that makes her heart shake.

So she takes them, one by one, every day so she can focus and do her best for Archie.

So she can feel invincible and keep the fear at bay.

 

* * *

 

Somewhere near the end of July, it starts taking closer to two hours to come up. And that’s even with two cups of coffee thrown into the mix.

She starts getting tired at night; she starts being able to sleep through it. She starts finding herself hungry at dinner, and to her great frustration, at lunch, too.

It isn’t working as well as it did before, and she knows how the story goes – it’s only going to get worse from here. Her body is only going to get more used to it, and she won’t feel this way anymore, like she’s flying, like she’s using every surface and space of her brain. Like there isn’t anything she can’t do.

And ordinarily, that would be fine. Sleeping through the night is a good thing, and so is eating all three meals of the day. But there’s too much on the line for that now – this is Archie’s entire life and it could very well go up in flames.

The part of her that adheres to cynicism thinks that it might have already.

On a bright morning, she draws her curtains closed, locks the door, and from her pink push-up bra, fishes out two blue pills.

They stare back at her from the top of her dresser – one, two. A and B. Right and left, and for the first time, she pauses.

She knows that drugs are dangerous and taking more than she’s supposed to, especially so.

 _But for Archie_ , she thinks. _This is for Archie._

This is for Archie’s life.

With her breath held, she twists the clear half of the pill off the first pill and wedges it into the plush fabric of her push-up bra to hold it up, marveling at the little white beads as she does; she’s never seen them up this close before.

Then, with nimble fingers, she twists the clear cap off the second pill and pours half the beads into the first before twisting them both shut

 _Compromise_ , she convinces herself.

And at the hour mark on the dot, the world bursts into color again.

 

* * *

 

After she’s heard the closing arguments, she finds herself near the cooler, drinking water from a cup shaped like a cone.

She doesn’t need it today. She’s not working, she’s just listening. Waiting.

She’s not tired because how could she be at a time like this? She couldn’t sleep if her life depended on it – there’s too much hanging in the balance.

There’s no need for her to take it, but there go her hands, reaching into her purse for the little blue pill anyhow.

Cupping it in her palm and closing her fingers protectively around it, Betty rolls it gently, just like she did that very first day.

She starts thinking about magic then, and how this very small blue pill can and does unlock within her so much more than she’s typically capable of. It’s kind of like magic, or at least a small miracle of some kind that within this tiny little thing in her hands is the power for her.

There are people all around her, Josie and her mom off in a corner, Kevin, who she’s already seen look over her way once or twice, and Jughead standing with Mary and Fred. And even though his eyes aren’t trained right on her, she can feel them watching her, like the crest of a blue wave crashing down on her head.

Betty does what her instinct tells her to do and quickly pops the pill into her mouth.

On the stairs, he looks at her, surprised and maybe a little concerned when she fails to remember they’d left Sweetwater Swimming Hole covered in leeches somewhere faraway in their childhood, but she brushes it off.

It would’ve been an easy enough memory to push away to the back of her mind. It’s an easy enough memory to forget.

Later at Pop’s, she swirls her straw around in her milkshake – she isn’t hungry and she isn’t thirsty. But when he looks over at her from across the table, eyes lingering but never for all that long, she reminds herself that the right thing to do is to take a sip.

 

* * *

 

It doesn’t come as a surprise to her, but when night comes, she can’t sleep – the magic is still there, humming through her blood. And she knows the feeling well enough by now, and what she knows is that she’s still so high; she won’t be coming down anytime soon, nor will she be sleeping.

She starts thinking about Archie then, Archie probably lying awake across the way for reasons so different than the ones keeping her up.

_If they’d really believed Archie hadn’t done it, they would’ve returned a verdict by now._

_They wouldn’t need all this time._

She’s been grappling with this all day and trying her very best to convince herself that it isn’t true. They’re just being careful, she’d told herself. They’re stacking up the evidence and the testimony, and they’re being thorough.

_And that’s just justice for you, Betty Cooper._

But still – it’s a thought she’s circled back to over and over – that they’re taking this long because they don’t completely believe him, or none of them know beyond a shadow of a doubt that Archie is no murderer.

And if the worst really happens on Tuesday, and if Archie does go away, there will be so much more to do. There’ll be an appeal, there’ll be the monumental task of keeping Archie sane, of keeping herself sane. There’ll be Veronica to take care of, and Jughead, too.

There’s so much to do.

Hidden away in the depth of her closet, squatting just below her dresses that brush against her back as she crouches over the pink pad, she writes herself another month’s worth – just to be safe.

 

* * *

 

Her sister – her crystal wearing, voodoo believing, insane-in-the-membrane sister of all people turns out to be the one to catch her.

“Polly did some digging – there is no Dr. Glass,” her mother accuses her, and just like that, she’s caught.

_You’ve been making up a psychiatrist to scam medication._

_You’re in denial, Betty._

_You need to admit that you’re sick._

She storms off and plasters a smile on her face as she climbs into the backseat of Archie’s jalopy.

They ask her if she’s okay, and even if she wanted to answer with anything but _‘of course I am, why wouldn’t I be?’,_ how can she?

By all accounts, she’s fine. She’s not the one on trial for a murder, and she’s not the one who might only see daylight from behind bars for years to come on Tuesday. It isn’t the time to make this about her right now.

What it is the time for is making sure Archie has the best day that they can give him.

“Really, guys,” she tells them all. “I’m fine. Let’s just go.”

Archie is a good driver, good enough that she doesn’t worry about whether or not they’ll end up in a ditch on the side of the road. She’d much prefer to be the one at the wheel, but she understands that it isn’t always up to her. She knows that she can’t have everything go her way.

She can’t control everything she wants to control.

As the wind brushes her ponytail away from her face, and as she lifts her arms up in the air, relishing in the feeling the current pushing against them, she thinks back on what her sister said to her before she’d hopped in the car.

_You need to admit that you’re sick._

Her sister might be out there, and she may even be crazy, but to her knowledge, Polly isn’t the one writing illegal prescriptions for herself. Polly isn’t the one who hasn’t slept for months on end even saddled with two babies, as much as she loves them.

Polly isn’t the one working on her best friend’s murder defense, and she doesn’t spend her nights memorizing docket numbers and exhibit lists.

_You need to admit that you’re sick. You’re in denial, Betty._

And for the first time in a long time, she thinks that her mother and Polly might both be right.

 

* * *

 

Betty tells him in not so many words and with her head cast down. But technically, even the few words she does share with him aren’t lies.

“Maybe I should stop taking Adderall,” she says, studying the rocks in front of her before placing the one she’s been turning over in her hand onto the top of the middle stack she’s been building.

Because he’s sweet and because he loves her, he doesn’t judge – at least, she doesn’t think he does. He doesn’t tell her I told you so, and he doesn’t condescend and talk down on her.

He does sit down next to her without a word, affording only a fleeting glance to the piles of organized stones in front of her before looking squarely at her.

“Betty,” he says to her quietly but with all the confidence in the world. “We’re going to get through it.”

And when he reaches over behind her head and caps it with his beanie, so gently and so tenderly, and yet, not at all like she’s breakable, she believes him.

She leans forward, and as her eyes flutter close, she catches the uneven licks of orange flames dancing at the corners. She kisses him then, hoping that it’s enough to say everything that she doesn’t know how to right now.

_Thank you – for not judging me, for not admonishing me – thank you._

_You so rarely let me down, and this is no exception._

_I love the way you stand by me._

When she opens her eyes, nothing more than slivers because she still wants to stay at least a little lost in this moment, he’s already looking at her, blue eyes wide open.

And even through the night, lit with the help of a synthetic log, the world, she realizes, is still bright.

It’s brighter than it's ever been before.

 

* * *

 

It ends with the very best of intentions.

Later, when she’s home, she marches straight up to her room and yanks out the bra she defaced from her dresser drawer.

Betty stands there for a moment, lacy pink cup cradled in each hand.

She knows what the right thing to do is. If she’s being honest with herself – and who else to be honest with but herself – she’s known what the right thing to do is for a long time now.

But even though she knows, the right thing is never the easy thing so she holds her breath as she turns her broken bra over the toilet and shakes out what remains.

She can’t control where the pills fall, but she can control this.

How much she breathes. _When_ she breathes.

The pills float pathetically on the water, bobbing against each other like bumper cars and recoiling back as they make contact, maneuvering and meandering in what little space there is on the water’s surface.

And in a way, they’re very pretty, all that blue and white together; such a pretty color combination.

Then, with quick and decisive movements, she reaches over and pushes down on the handle.

Betty inhales, sucking in a great, heaving gulp of air as the pills swirl against the downward spiral of water, almost as if grasping for the air and world she’s depriving them of, before disappearing into nothing.

But she feels okay, she realizes as she tosses the broken pink bra into the trash and the pink prescription pad right after it. _Pink on pink._ She doesn’t feel like she’s out of control even with the little soldiers of her control floating down some sewer now. She doesn’t feel crazy, and she doesn’t feel evil brewing in her bones.

She feels perfectly fine.

She feels fine enough to forget all this ever happened and fine enough to push this away into an unused corner of her mind and move on with her life, just as she’s always done.

_Forget it all and put it in the past. Move on._

Tomorrow is a new day, and there’s so much to do.

But it can be great one, and she can be great all on her own, too.

 

* * *

 

There’s orange at her window where there should be black, and that alone is enough to draw her up and out of bed and padding down the stairs.

She isn’t ready for what she sees when she gets there.

Her niece and nephew dangling over an open flame.

Her mother and Polly holding the twins up in the air like something out of a Disney movie.

People she’s never seen before dressed in white.

In her heart, she knows what’s coming before it even happens because she’s been playing at this game all summer – flying high and dropping back down, rising and falling – what goes up must come back down.

In a mix of bile and saliva, her heart rises to the back of her throat as the twins drop and her stomach, filled with nothing more than a burnt marshmallow and half a graham cracker, twists and slams against her spine.

_“No!”_

What happens next is what she wants to happen – she loves those chubby little babies and their little fists and coos with her whole heart, and of course she doesn’t want to see them go into the fire like she expects them to.

But that’s the entire point – she expects them to fall.

In a million years, she never would’ve expected them to fly.

 _What the hell,_ she thinks then. _What the hell, what the actual hell?_

This time, her heartbeat speeds up all on its own. The feeling – the one that resembles having swirled a cotton ball in her mouth for the better part of an hour – returns on its own, too. Her temples start closing in on either side of her head and when she inhales, what little air she can inhale fills her nostrils and stings sharply.

Then, a blur of orange as she feels herself crashing down.

Flashing lights. Flashing colors.

Pieces of red from the paintings and pictures on the wall. Glints and shimmers of orange from the fire. Shards of beige from the couch, the curtains. The lampshades.

 _Too much beige in the house,_ she thinks. _Too much beige._

Betty starts making promises then; she doesn’t know how to control her body from the way it’s shaking and seizing against the oak floor, but maybe she can control her mind.

She’ll never take Adderall again, she swears it. She’ll never even _think_ about it again.

She’ll find another therapist. Dr. Glassman may have an ugly couch, and she might be full of shit, but Betty knows there are so many other therapists that aren’t. She’s been neglectful in taking care of herself, she hasn’t put in the effort she should’ve, and she promises she’ll do better. She’ll go to all the doctors in the tri-state area if that’s what it’ll take to find one she doesn’t want to spend an hour sulking and being sassy at.

She’ll never lie to Jughead again, to her mother, to Polly – she’ll never lie to anyone ever again. She’s been twisting the truth all summer, spinning the facts in Archie’s favor and maybe, even as much as she hates to admit it, painting him with a brush more generously than even she thinks he deserves.

She’ll be the good person everyone thinks she is if only she can get through these moments she can’t wrap her arms around, squeeze, and control.

The color starts fading as the world closes in on her – the orange rips from view, slipping away from the corners of her eyes, and the beige, too. Then goes the pieces of red, then finally the blue she’d been holding onto so desperately – the jagged fragment of blue from the spine of the book of Impressionist art sitting out on the coffee table.

She’s unsurprised to find that she doesn’t like the darkness that follows.

In fact, she hates it.

 

 

 

_**Fin.** _

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> (Lyrics from Cali God by Grace Mitchell.)


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